


the warmth of a long-lost brother

by robyndoesntlikeyou



Series: humming destinies [1]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, But this is an exception, First Meetings, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Language of Flowers, Mentioned Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), No Romance, Phil Watson Adopts Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Purple Prose, Ranboo-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Tragedy, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, Wilbur Soot-centric, i hate that i have to write that <3, if anyone wants to analyze the flower language and drop that shit in the comments, it isnt often that i write techno into the sbi family dynamic bc i know its not canon, me: slaps fic this baby can fit so much symbolism in it, that would be so dope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:22:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29596881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robyndoesntlikeyou/pseuds/robyndoesntlikeyou
Summary: "'Moirai' is the Greek name for the goddesses of fate. The Romans called them the Parcae. Conclusively, they are each other's equivalent."Clotho sits at her loom, spinning the thread of human fate; Lachesis measures it, exact to the second; Atropos waits at the close, snipping the string of a life, determining when it ends.""Some say that the Moirai are ruthless and unforgiving, and others say they hold sympathy for the lives they weave. But all agree on one thing: once your thread is spun and measured, your fate is sealed. You cannot escape."
Relationships: Ranboo & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Technoblade, Ranboo & Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Wilbur Soot, Ranboo & Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Series: humming destinies [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2174415
Comments: 10
Kudos: 149





	the warmth of a long-lost brother

**Author's Note:**

> SYMBOLISM GO BRR
> 
> i worked on this for so long hsdhfshd this took ages to properly research and plan out
> 
> this will definitely be a series!!! i love writing about sbi+ranboo and tubbo and this was really fun to write :3 i love purple prose hfdhsd
> 
> please enjoy :)

Ranboo woke up to tranquil humming, and the low strum of a guitar drifting through his house.

_ "I heard there was a special place..." _

He jolted up, the familiar lyrics ringing through his brain. L'manburg's anthem.

_ "Where men could go and emancipate..." _

"Hello?" He mumbled, his voice echoing as the singing dissolved into hush. "Who's there?"

"We've not met, have we?"

British accent. Smooth, level, deliberately spoken. Pacific and warm. Almost monotone. It evoked memories of a sunlit afternoon, beams behind clouds sifting through shutters, faded book pages dog-eared and well-loved.

"I... I don't think so? I mean, I have a pretty bad memory," he revealed quietly. "Who are you? Are you another voice?"

"Another voice?" The person paused. "Ah, I see. You're like us, huh? I'm sorry. It's not an easy life."

Ranboo shrugged, fingers tangling in the quilt pooled in his lap, itching to hold. "You haven't told me who you are."

And then, a man appeared, phantasmal, brilliant. Donning L'manburg's revolutionary uniform, navy, white and gold. Brown, curly hair, falling into his eyes - goldenrod eyes, curling with love and warmth and safety. 

He looked like a living beacon, glowing softly, golden light. Filling every crevice, every crack, filtering out through the windows.

His face was known to the hybrid. Where had he seen those eyes?

"It doesn't matter," the man murmured. "We haven't met, have we?"

"I think maybe we have..." Ranboo whispered, almost hesitant to speak too loud in case he frightened away this beacon.

Only then did he realize the outstretched, pallid wings, flickering and fluttering.

Ashen gray. Honeycomb gold and oleander white checkered across, tiny speckles of lifetimes passed, dotted onto feathers, like memories, like stars.

Phil's wings.

"You're his son," the hybrid gasped. "You're Wilbur."

The man smiled, slow, warm. Smokey, goldenrod eyes reflected back at him.

"You're his son too," Wilbur replied. Voice dripping with fondness, fine and kindly, warm molasses broiling over a hearth. Oxeye daisies unfurled at his feet, fresh and white and golden. Lavender and mint sprigs grew from his hair, feathery leaves, sugared perianths. "He likes you. So does my brother, more than he would admit if you asked."

"Your brother?" Ranboo whispered. "Tommy?"

Wilbur laughed, and it sounded like a cardinal's song in winter, when the snow floats down and the ground is slick with ice. The sun glints on red wings, small black eyes, watching, searching.

"No, not him. Not my Tom. The other brother. Towering, powerful. The best of us."

Ranboo glanced towards Techno's house, then back towards the wild force of nature that seemed to have spawned in his home. Wilbur dipped his head, smiling softly.

"Why are you here?" The hybrid murmured. "Why have you come to me?"

"I'm... unsure," the winged man revealed, goldenrod eyes flicking to the carpet. "You have an interesting home design, though. Why the crying obsidian?"

Ranboo cleared his throat quietly. Inhaling slow. Golden light wavered, then brightened.

"Uh, I'm an enderman hybrid."

Wilbur shone, the flowers in his hair blooming wider. He beamed, sunshine and ochroid.

"That's unique. My brother is a hybrid, as well." He paused, thinking for a moment. "You do remind me of him."

"Of Techno?" Ranboo questioned, surprise flooding him. Did he remind Wilbur of Technoblade, of all people?

Wilbur hummed, nodding softly. He moved forward, unhurried, looking intensely into Ranboo's eyes. Goldenrod, seeking something.

For once, the eye contact didn't bother him.

"You are quite extraordinary, do you know that?" Wilbur murmured. "I would've liked you. As my brothers do."

"But why?" The hybrid pleaded despairingly, the barrier of restraint finally collapsing. "I've done terrible things. How can people love me?"

Goldenrod fell sadly. A smile, a passing hum of a draft in his ear, a wing around him, blinking nebulas.

"As have I - perhaps we all have, at that," Wilbur responded. "But this family would be profoundly remiss if they didn't bring in someone like you. It's what we do - we love the unloved."

Ranboo held deathly still as Wilbur stepped closer, until they were nearly touching, and smiled.

"You, child, were unquestionably unloved before you were found by my own. They bring you happiness, do they not?"

"I- yes, I... believe," the hybrid admitted. "But they brought you happiness too, right? And you still... well, you still killed yourself."

Wilbur hummed softly. "My fate was pre-destined. Like a thread, my lifeforce had already been severed. But you… your fate is still changing, shaped by your own weaving hands. Do you know the story of the Moirai?"

"No... no, I'm afraid I don't," Ranboo admitted.

Wilbur smiled. "I thought my brother would have told you this one by now. It was one of his favorite tales when we were young."

He drifted across the room, seeming like he scarcely touched the floor, but instead danced just above it. He raised his hands, gentle fingers composing a tale.

"'Moirai' is the Greek name for the goddesses of fate. The Romans called them the Parcae. Conclusively, they are each other's equivalent.

"Clotho sits at her loom, spinning the thread of human fate; Lachesis measures it, exact to the second; Atropos waits at the close, snipping the string of a life, determining when it ends." 

Gold leaped at his fingertips - a machine, turning round and round, then a woman, carefully guiding, and then another, slicing through the thread as it sailed through the air towards her. 

"Some say that the Moirai are ruthless and unforgiving, and others say they hold sympathy for the lives they weave. But all agree on one thing: once your thread is spun and measured, your fate is sealed. You cannot escape."

The golden strands fell away, dissolving into glitter, then into nothingness. Not a speck of the light remained.

The winged man stared at him, goldenrod eyes bright and piercing, unblinking, but soft.

"Do you believe in fate, Ranboo?"

Such a simple utterance, yet it had his mind twisting. 

Silence spanned minutes, but felt like hours. The only sonance that filled the space was the faraway humming that seemed to follow those goldenrod eyes everywhere they went.

"I... I-I don’t know," he whispered.

Light engulfed him as Wilbur set a hand on his shoulder, calming the abrupt irate rushes inside his head.

"It's a difficult question," he smiled softly, voice brimming with geniality. "Perhaps one day you'll know, perhaps you'll never decide. Many people don't. I know I never did," Wilbur grinned, eyes glittering and patient. "I think I'm going to be here for a while. I feel something... tying me to this place. Do you understand?"

Ranboo sighed, and once again allowed the golden light to wash over him, the wing fluttering around his shoulders shuddering and grazing him softly. "Yeah, I think I know what you mean. Wait, when you say 'this place', what do you mean?"

Wilbur motioned uncertainly. "Here. Not this house, exactly, but this... plane. I can no longer return to where I was before... I feel something holding me here. I'm not finished my journey just yet, I feel."

The ender hybrid nodded slowly. "Okay... well then, logically, we should find out how to help you, right? So you can go home."

Wilbur smiled dolefully. "This is my home. The place I came from... the Inbetween... that isn't my home. Though it is certainly beautiful - quite spacious and serene - it isn't home. It isn't mine."

Ranboo nodded again, breathing deeply. "Yeah... I get that. This place you're talking about, the- the Inbetween, what is it?"

Wilbur shrugged. "I'm not so sure. I just know that ever since I passed on, that's where I've been."

"But what is it? Like, describe it to me."

"Well..." Wilbur shifted slightly, reflecting, reminiscing. "It's huge. Everything there is white, or very pale, at the least. There are little gardens all over the place - lush grass, wildflowers, trees, the occasional pond. It's... very peaceful there. 

"When I first arrived, I thought perhaps it was Heaven - thought maybe it was the afterlife that everyone here talks about. But... it's not. Not quite. The most prominent thing, I believe, is that for as large as it is, I haven't seen anyone else. It's gorgeous, and certainly impressive, but it's quite... lonely."

Ranboo lowered his head. If there was anything he knew, it was loneliness.

"What about you, lad? What were you, before you were this? Where do you come from?"

The question almost startled him. Nobody had asked where he came from, who he was before he arrived in the SMP. He didn't expect them to, either.

"I... come from a different realm. Hypixel. I- I fought there. Usually, people have somewhere else to go - another server with their friends, or a private domain, or- or a single-player world. But... not me. I didn't have anywhere else. I just sort of... hung around. Slept in lobbies where I could, lived jumping from one game to the next. I trained, played day and night, cut people down over and over. 

"Eventually I started scaling leaderboards there, gaining notoriety. Not sure why - maybe it's because of how rare enderman hybrids are? - but I appreciated it nonetheless. It just kept going and going; I received invites to privately owned domains, other servers, other SMPs. But none of them really... fascinated me. Until this one," he smiled, thinking of when he had first joined the Dream SMP. Sentimentality washed over him. It was only a few months ago, but it felt like eons.

Wilbur smiled softly, reaching up to gently brush his fingers against Ranboo's cheek. The hybrid froze, staring down. Goldenrod eyes.

"You are just like him," the winged man murmured, thumb grazing his cheekbone, brows furrowed, smokey eyes pensive. "No wonder he likes you so much. He doesn't want you to follow the path the world demanded he take. Doesn't want to see you fall into the same trap he found himself caught in so long ago, when he was young. It would... pain him, to see you change as he did, become what he has become, through necessity, through trials of loss and tribulation. When he was your age..." his voice trailed off, tainted with sadness. "When he was your age, he... hurt someone. Someone he didn't want to. It wasn't his fault - they provoked him, drove him. They stole his things, pranked him, laughed at him. They were an awful excuse for a friend, but he liked them anyway.

"Something ghastly happened one day. They... did something, more grave than usual, and... and he snapped. Succumbed to the voices, the violence. He hurt them terribly. They never recovered, and he never forgave himself," Wilbur whispered, withdrawn, misty with memories. Goldenrod dimmed, like honey swirling, sharks racing in a whirlpool. "He's terrified of trusting people, lest they steal his secrets and turn their back on him. It's happened many times, perhaps once or twice at my own hand. The guilt, I'm certain, will never leave me," Wilbur laughed humorlessly. Cardinals swooped and barn owls crooned, but the frost overtook windows and hands, staining cheeks red, curling fingers in on themselves.

“I was different when I was alive. I didn’t… I didn’t  _ understand _ . It never rang through me that the choices I made affected those around me. I was short-sighted... selfish. I taught my younger brother my ways, and now I fear that he follows in my footsteps,” Wilbur sighed. Flowers wilted, withered, sickness spreading through mossy earth. Goldenrod glistened like dusk on slick leaves. “At the end of my life, I became hopeless, cynical and self-destructive. The pressure of my ex-citizens, my old friends, waiting for me to resume my work and take back up my pedestal of president weighed harshly on me. 

“I worked closely with my brother, and the way he spoke of politics and power began to affect me. I questioned my own ways, wondered if perhaps I was doing the wrong thing, and it worried and depressed me. I wanted to be the best that I could be. I wanted to stop the conflict, to be a righteous guide for this country that I had built, to keep my son and those I held dear safe behind the walls I built up. I was not perfect, I will admit, even before my rationality slipped through my fingers like desiccated, crumbling clay,” he laughed, bitter, virulent, anger tilting his tone, coating sharp fangs. Gold-flecked wings curled inwards, goldenrod flickering, losing shine. Metallic no more.

“Perhaps I was a fool, to drag my brother into my own transgressions. If not for me, maybe he would have been safe. Perhaps his best friend’s face wouldn’t be littered with scars at my own disgrace, my own rebuttal towards my brother’s steadfast morality battling against our joint insecurities.” 

Wilbur turned to face him once more, smiling sadly. “Fascinating, no? My intentions were only ever to shield him from the wickedness of the world, and yet I brought him more grief than any two put together.”

Ranboo lowered his head, drawing closer to the winged man. “You were his brother, and he loved you. Idolized you, even. Whether you wanted him to or not, he would have followed you anywhere.”

“He wanted to make our family proud,” Wilbur confessed softly, glancing out the window towards Techno’s house. “My brother won the biannual duelist’s competition in the capital twice in a row when he was seventeen years old. My father was a world-renowned survivalist. Tommy only wanted them to be happy with him - wanted to prove that he was more than just a child,” Wilbur hummed, the quiet sound drenched in grief. “He was always more than just a child, you know. He was ours. One of us, from the beginning, when I first looked upon him, tucked in his cradle. All yellow and blue like Father.” He smiled wistfully, eyes shimmering. “Toms looked like him, and I looked like her. After she passed, our father could hardly look upon me without his eyes filling up. He used to tell me I got everything from her, right down to my perfect pitch - I still have the first guitar she ever gifted me, inscribed with my birth name.”

“‘Wilbur Gold Watson, named for his eyes’,” Ranboo whispered, repeating the sentiment that Phil had uttered so many times. “‘Liquid gold, like the spots on my wings.’”

Wilbur smiled warmly. “That’s right. Does he still talk about me?”

The hybrid nodded softly, flickering memories blighting his mind, the loss irrevocable, like water damage on antique photos. “He loved you very much. He still does.” 

Wilbur stepped towards the window, placing his hands upon the sill, haltingly, deathly still. Wings unfettered, chest unmoving with livelihood, goldenrod eyes longing. “He loves you, too,” he responded, voice strangely distant, in both tone and environment. 

“At times, the desire for a child, breathing and loving, overtakes him, and he unfurls his wings and stands atop the highest mountain in the arctic, extending his feathers and pretending it doesn’t ache. Pretending he didn’t relinquish himself for his son, only to find the same bleeding out, curling in his arms like a babe, making his own wings,” Wilbur whispered. “If only I could return to that day, clear my own mind. There was no reason in those last moments, no clearing of my eyes. My father’s desperate hands did not cut through my blindness. I begged him to kill me, if only to end my own wretchedness, if only to protect his other son from my decrepit mind, paired with a stilted, angered body, hands blackened with my best friend’s lifeblood.

“Seditious, perverse thoughts plagued me at every step, following me. Never had the voices fallen silent, and yet… in those times…” the winged man shivered, the only sign that the body by the sill was still inhabited. “In those times, they were quiet. No murmuring, no contributions to my own insights. Nobody left to pull me back out of my own disastrous, self-made spiral,” Wilbur trembled, and he turned from the window, abandoning it in favor of padding towards Ranboo. “It was made of my own hands as much as my fallen country was.”

Silence crashed over them, winding golden vines, thorned, dotted with long, spindly leaves, jagged edges. A quiet proclamation which rocked in the taciturnity, cerulean ripples upon golden sands, scene tinted with a rose-quartz soir.


End file.
